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Her Eternal Warrior

Page 14

by Caitlyn O’Leary

Brax would bet the last dollar in his savings account Nolan had one or two changes of clothes for Jenny Rivers in his pack that he’d gotten from his wife, Maggie. Maggie wouldn’t have asked a single question; she would’ve just offered things up. Plus, Nolan would have a set of rain gear and boots for the woman. That was just his friends’ way.

Walking over to him, he caught Nolan’s eye and held out his hand. “Give me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve already got enough shit in your pack with all the medical gear. Give me all the clothes and shit you’ve got for Jenny Rivers. I’ll carry that.”

Nolan frowned at him. “This is my purview.”

“I agree, you carrying the extra fifteen pounds of medical shit is part of your job. Carrying an extra eleven to sixteen pounds for Ms. Rivers? Don’t think so. It’s just stupid. Now give me.”

Nolan rolled his eyes and put his pack on one of the desks, and Braxton put his beside it. Nolan took out all the gear he had for Jenny and Brax transferred it into his pack. As he shifted he realized that with the boots it was probably closer to fifteen pounds.

He grinned. “At least this way you won’t have Kostya telling you to do this in front of everybody in twenty minutes.”

“There is that,” Nolan agreed.

Brax sat down next to Lincoln Hart and continued to eye both the door and Kostya. Gideon had now shown up so his lieutenant kept looking at whatever Gideon was showing him on his tablet. Kostya was not happy,

“Brax, shut off the lights, will you?” Kostya asked.

“But everybody’s not here.”

“Yes, they are.” Kostya said.

So, we’re going in lean. Good to know.

“Five bodies were discovered three days ago. Caucasian and African American. They were identified as the five men who work for Lowry Kidnap and Rescue, an outfit out of Texas. They’re good.”

Brax saw a couple of his teammates nod, as they all looked around to see who was missing, and who would actually be going on the mission.

“This is who Ms. Rivers’ company, New Era Cyber Tech, hired to find her and bring her back. Their bodies got tangled in a fishing net. They’d been weighted down, but their bodies bloating brought them close to the surface. That’s why they were found so quickly.”

Gideon stayed on the shot of the bodies for just a moment before switching to a picture of two Bangladeshi women. “These are the two women who were with Ms. Rivers before she disappeared. Their story so far has been that they dropped off their brother and Ms. Rivers at her house then drove to their parents’ home in Dhaka. That has never held water, and now with the five Lowry men showing up murdered, the US Embassy in Bangladesh brought the women in for further questioning.”

Kostya looked around the room and when he was satisfied that everyone was tracking, he continued.

“Once the sisters were separated, we got the information we needed. We found out why they had never come forward. One of the women told the embassy personnel that Ms. Rivers had been taken by two men in police uniforms.”

Gideon turned his chair away from his computer so he was looking at the team. “That would be the reason they weren’t saying anything. If they saw their brother being murdered by the police, who can sometimes be the goon squads of the Awami League, they knew they would be in trouble. When the other sister was confronted with her sister’s confession, they both started talking.”

“Do you have their statements?” Jase asked.

“Yeah,” Gideon said. “I’ve been going over them since eight last night. They said Ms. Rivers was taken away in a small delivery truck. She said it had writing and a logo on it, but it was too far away from them to make out the words. One of the sisters thinks the logo had a bull on it, but she wasn’t positive.”

“And?” Linc asked.

Everyone on the team knew Gideon hadn’t left it at that. It wasn’t in his nature.

“In the national firms, it was mostly banking and securities that use a bull in their logo, but they don’t use delivery trucks like the women described. Currently, I’m scrolling through the online Bangladesh Yellow Pages to see if there are any businesses with a bull in their logo.”

“They have yellow pages? Like those big books they used to deliver to our house and Mom used for the littler kids to sit on at the dinner table?” Jase asked.

“We don’t have time for the snark, Jase,” Kostya said. “Gideon, continue.”

“The online Yellow Pages are where most local businesses in and around Dhaka advertise their business. They use text and artwork. I set up a program to identify logos with bulls in them. Hopefully, we’ll have a match soon.”

“In the meantime,” Kostya said, “We go in. We would have liked to go with the backing of the Bangladeshi government, but that’s not possible.”